Cybersecurity

OPINION

The Technology Mysteries of 2013

In the technology market, we have a number of interesting mysteries at the moment. Somehow someone in China was killed -- electrocuted -- by an iPhone, and someone made up a nasty story about Lenovo and the Chinese government and got folks to pick it up during the U.S. NSA scandal. One of the most p...

A team of researchers used a custom-built GPS device to send counterfeit signals to a 213-foot yacht, forcing the $80 million vessel off its course without triggering any alarms. The spoofed yacht was part of the experiment, so no harm was inflicted on the vehicle or its passengers. However, the tes...

Glorious Mission Online, a first-person shooting game launched in China and codeveloped by the People's Liberation Army, lets gamers defeat Japan in the fake quest to take back real islands. The game includes the real-life plot in which China and Japan fight over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, which si...

TECH TREK

2 Brits Jailed for Courtroom Web Use

Two men from near London, a 21-year-old and 29-year-old, have each been sentenced to two months in jail following contempt of court convictions for misusing the Internet while serving on a jury. The 21-year-old posted a Facebook message during a sex offense prosecution, saying that he wanted to "f**...

It wasn't long after the Internet came into widespread use that online privacy became a growing concern. After all, anytime people are connected through their computers and sharing resources online, there's the potential for prying and abuse. Such concerns were compounded with the arrival of social ...

Devout followers pay heed: The Catholic Church is offering indulgences for those who take the righteous step of following Pope Francis on Twitter. The granting of indulgences, a centuries-old practice, is believed to reduce the time that one must spend in purgatory. Traditional means of obtaining in...

European Union justice commissioner Viviane Reding implored EU member states to get on board with Germany's call for tougher and more unified data protection laws. German chancellor Angela Merkel spent the weekend clamoring for EU-wide regulations that would force more transparency from Internet com...

In Japan, a flubbed privacy setting made public a Google Groups chat among Japanese bureaucrats, allowing any-and-everyone to see internal memos, including negotiating positions for an international treaty. The default settings for Google Groups, which are established by the party that started the c...

France has abandoned a law that called for copyright infringers' Internet connections to be cut off upon a third offense. The law stipulated that letters be sent the first and second time people illicitly downloaded copyrighted material; the third time around, an offender's Web access would be disco...

It looks as though leaker/hero/traitor Edward Snowden has options as he seeks a place to take up asylum. Venezuela and Bolivia have now both offered asylum to Snowden, who is believed to be holed up in a Moscow airport. Snowden reportedly submitted a formal asylum request with Venezuela and Nicaragu...

Don't be surprised if this becomes a thing. Twitter's "retained profits" last year in the UK came to just Pounds 92,408 -- about $137,500. Some in Britain speculate that the piddly amount reflects some clever accounting, namely routing revenue through Ireland, where tax rates are much lower. If that...

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to exercise authority over the surveillance activities of the United States government, reportedly has been issuing rulings that assess broad constitutional questions and establish judicial pr...

It was once virtually unthinkable for a company to operate on a global scale, but if a recent move by PayPal is any indication, this small planet of ours may soon be just the beginning. In fact, PayPal on Thursday announced the launch of PayPal Galactic, an initiative that's designed to address the ...

France's data protection watchdog, the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes, says it will fine Google if the company doesn't rewrite its privacy policy within the next three months. The CNIL will fine Google up to 150,000 euros, or about $200,000, and double that if it fails to act...

The United States and Russia are going to cooperate more closely on cybersecurity, the White House has announced. They are setting up a new working group under the auspices of the Bilateral Presidential Commission, set up in 2009 by President Obama and then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, to asse...

Technewsworld Channels